At the Institut Curie, Inserm researchers and physicians have established the largest ever panel of human breast cancer xenografts in animal models.
Because of their similarity to patient tumors, these models are an exceptional tool for testing the efficacy of new drugs, adapting treatments to tumor characteristics, unraveling resistance to certain treatments, and as a result limiting the need for clinical trials in patients. Institut Curie and Inserm medical oncologists, surgeons, pathologists and biologists collaborated on this work on mouse models which can now be extended to other types of cancers. The 25 breast tumor models are described in a study published in the 1 July 2007 issue of Clinical Cancer Research.
To help clinicians in their search for more effective treatments, Marie-France Poupon and her team in Institut Curie Inserm Unit 612 “Genotoxicology, signaling and experimental radiotherapy” have developed the largest ever series of human breasts cancers grafted into mice. This six-year study would not have been successful without close collaboration between Institut Curie and Inserm medical oncologists, surgeons, pathologists, and biologists.
These breast cancer xenografts in mice reproduce the genetic, genomic, and histological characteristics of the patient-derived tumor tissues. So they recapitulate features of the original tumors, such as overexpression of HER2 receptors, absence or presence of estrogen receptors, mutation of P53, and react identically to chemotherapy.